The Port Authority of Sines and the Algarve has awarded the National Laboratory of Civil Engineering (LNEC) the contract to undertake a study to look at ways to improve the maritime access to the port of Portimão.
The study will look at reducing the length of the eastern breakwater by 70 metres while maintaining safety and protection in high seas.
In January 2014, the administrator of the ports of Sines and the Algarve José Pedro Soares said that the environmental impact studies prior to execution of the work should proceed immediately, anticipating that they would take 8 - 10 months.
The maritime access study has only just been commissioned and an early press release included the date of October 2015 for completion. Whatever the date for the delivery of this initial study, it will be added to other data to form a weighty Environmental Impact Assessment indicating that the real work or dredging and building will not start at the earliest until well into 2015, more likely years afterwardsdue to a lack of urgency, claims of no money and a variety of delaying tactics which already have seen this project sidelined year after year.
In today’s press release the Port Authority stated “with changes to the harbour entrance, the port will be able to receive larger vessels, while maintaining the necessary safety conditions of the port operation.”
This statement of the blindingly obvious does not need a ponderous report to convince those dependent on tourism that this is a good idea. Portimão accepted 20,000 passengers last year and sees the possibility of 250,000 a year when the port is modernised.
This sort of growth could transform the city into a major destination and bring widespread benefits if marketed correctly to cruise companies.
The Port Authority of Sines and the Algarve is a misnomer as it has made crystal clear that it has no interest at all in developing the Algarve ports for the economic improvement of what is sees as a mere tourist zone as it concentrated on its primary interest of freight and its development of the Sines dockland infrastructure.
Despite promise after promise from minister after minister, and a local town hall that is in desperate need for the income opportunities that can be had with larger cruise ships docking in Portimão, this farce continues – the rot started when the management of the Algarve’s ports was removed from the Algarve and shifted 225 kilometres up the coast to Sines.
With deliberate cynicism, the current government continues to promise much with the Minister for the Economy Pires de Lima seeing obvious economic benefit to the Portimão area for not too much cost.
In August last year Pires de Lima announced that over four years approximately €10 million would be invested in the port of Portimão.
"The € 10 million will come for work which is necessary and which partly is provided from the Community Support budget (€3 million) to give this port of all the capabilities from a tourist point of view, including, of course, the tug," said the minister.
The tug for the Algarve's ports has since been cancelled by the Port Authority in Sines which will send one along as and when needed, weather allowing, if it can be bothered.
Went the cruise ship Funchal took cover off Praia da Rocha in January 2014 its passengers were stranded on board as the Sines tug boat, necessary to guide the Funchal into Portimão harbour, had to turn back due to the same poor weather that has caused the Funchal to alter course.
A second tug boat was despatched from Sines which did eventually arrive, but the gap in cover was highlighted and cries for a dedicated tug service have increased since.
The government response was clear in June this year, it “rejects the need to provide the Algarve with a tug."
Pires de Lima has made no further comment on the promised tug boat and a timetable for the development of the port clearly is too much to expect at this early stage.
It seems that even de Lima's plan for an extended port and some dredging has been kicked into the long grass by a government and port authority that continues deliberately to under-invest in the Algarve in favour of areas closer to Lisbon.
